Kalyn Watt
Design Manager at Design Innovation Illinois- Claim this Profile
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Bio
Priya Goel
I’ve had the opportunity to work with and manage Kalyn in multiple student organizations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a strong communicator and a highly skilled and talented designer with a keen eye for detail and a user-centered approach. Kalyn is always willing to lend a helping hand and provide valuable contributions to the team. She was always willing to go the extra mile to ensure that the final product exceeded expectations and would be a valuable asset to any team.
Jen Quinlan
So many good things to say about Kalyn. I've had the pleasure to work with Kalyn across both the summer and fall 2022 semesters at the Cargill Innovation Lab at UIUC. During the summer, Kalyn worked within a design consulting squad to assess and redesign a demand forecasting dashboard serving account managers and demand planners within Cargill Protein North America. This current semester, Kalyn has worked closely with me to serve a startup within Cargill, Reskued, that is addressing food waste distributor-side with a food surplus marketplace. For Reskued, Kalyn helped develop an outreach strategy to find marketplace customers (Reskuers), approach them, better understand their needs and ultimately help shape the future customer experience of the startup. She is calm, steady, positive, loyal, mature, analytical, kind, hard-working and presents ideas professionally to clients. She is eager to pick up new skills, open to new ideas and handles constructive feedback maturely. Kalyn has a bright future ahead of her as a UX research, UX UI Designer or even an entrepreneur. Thanks for sharing your talents with our Lab, Kalyn!
Priya Goel
I’ve had the opportunity to work with and manage Kalyn in multiple student organizations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a strong communicator and a highly skilled and talented designer with a keen eye for detail and a user-centered approach. Kalyn is always willing to lend a helping hand and provide valuable contributions to the team. She was always willing to go the extra mile to ensure that the final product exceeded expectations and would be a valuable asset to any team.
Jen Quinlan
So many good things to say about Kalyn. I've had the pleasure to work with Kalyn across both the summer and fall 2022 semesters at the Cargill Innovation Lab at UIUC. During the summer, Kalyn worked within a design consulting squad to assess and redesign a demand forecasting dashboard serving account managers and demand planners within Cargill Protein North America. This current semester, Kalyn has worked closely with me to serve a startup within Cargill, Reskued, that is addressing food waste distributor-side with a food surplus marketplace. For Reskued, Kalyn helped develop an outreach strategy to find marketplace customers (Reskuers), approach them, better understand their needs and ultimately help shape the future customer experience of the startup. She is calm, steady, positive, loyal, mature, analytical, kind, hard-working and presents ideas professionally to clients. She is eager to pick up new skills, open to new ideas and handles constructive feedback maturely. Kalyn has a bright future ahead of her as a UX research, UX UI Designer or even an entrepreneur. Thanks for sharing your talents with our Lab, Kalyn!
Priya Goel
I’ve had the opportunity to work with and manage Kalyn in multiple student organizations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a strong communicator and a highly skilled and talented designer with a keen eye for detail and a user-centered approach. Kalyn is always willing to lend a helping hand and provide valuable contributions to the team. She was always willing to go the extra mile to ensure that the final product exceeded expectations and would be a valuable asset to any team.
Jen Quinlan
So many good things to say about Kalyn. I've had the pleasure to work with Kalyn across both the summer and fall 2022 semesters at the Cargill Innovation Lab at UIUC. During the summer, Kalyn worked within a design consulting squad to assess and redesign a demand forecasting dashboard serving account managers and demand planners within Cargill Protein North America. This current semester, Kalyn has worked closely with me to serve a startup within Cargill, Reskued, that is addressing food waste distributor-side with a food surplus marketplace. For Reskued, Kalyn helped develop an outreach strategy to find marketplace customers (Reskuers), approach them, better understand their needs and ultimately help shape the future customer experience of the startup. She is calm, steady, positive, loyal, mature, analytical, kind, hard-working and presents ideas professionally to clients. She is eager to pick up new skills, open to new ideas and handles constructive feedback maturely. Kalyn has a bright future ahead of her as a UX research, UX UI Designer or even an entrepreneur. Thanks for sharing your talents with our Lab, Kalyn!
Priya Goel
I’ve had the opportunity to work with and manage Kalyn in multiple student organizations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is a strong communicator and a highly skilled and talented designer with a keen eye for detail and a user-centered approach. Kalyn is always willing to lend a helping hand and provide valuable contributions to the team. She was always willing to go the extra mile to ensure that the final product exceeded expectations and would be a valuable asset to any team.
Jen Quinlan
So many good things to say about Kalyn. I've had the pleasure to work with Kalyn across both the summer and fall 2022 semesters at the Cargill Innovation Lab at UIUC. During the summer, Kalyn worked within a design consulting squad to assess and redesign a demand forecasting dashboard serving account managers and demand planners within Cargill Protein North America. This current semester, Kalyn has worked closely with me to serve a startup within Cargill, Reskued, that is addressing food waste distributor-side with a food surplus marketplace. For Reskued, Kalyn helped develop an outreach strategy to find marketplace customers (Reskuers), approach them, better understand their needs and ultimately help shape the future customer experience of the startup. She is calm, steady, positive, loyal, mature, analytical, kind, hard-working and presents ideas professionally to clients. She is eager to pick up new skills, open to new ideas and handles constructive feedback maturely. Kalyn has a bright future ahead of her as a UX research, UX UI Designer or even an entrepreneur. Thanks for sharing your talents with our Lab, Kalyn!
Experience
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Design Innovation Illinois
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United States
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Design Services
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1 - 100 Employee
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Design Manager
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Jun 2023 - Present
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UX Designer
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Sep 2022 - Present
+ Worked on a team of 5 to assess effectiveness of LinkedIn and conduct a redesign case study+ Generated UX concepts such as user personas, affinity and journey mapping, and information architecture+ Employed exceptional design skills and attention to detail when designing in Figma using LinkedIn’s design system
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Project Lead
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Jan 2023 - Jul 2023
+ Manage a team of 4 to conduct a redesign case study for Goodreads
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Motorola Solutions
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Software Development
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400 - 500 Employee
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UX Design Intern
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May 2023 - Present
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Hack4Impact
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United States
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Software Development
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100 - 200 Employee
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Product Designer
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Jan 2023 - Present
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Cargill
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United States
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Food and Beverage Manufacturing
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700 & Above Employee
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UI/UX Intern
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Aug 2022 - May 2023
+ Worked solo on a project with a startup backed by Cargill and Google that targeted distributor-level food waste+ Collaborated with high-profile clients to conduct research and outreach for customer base+ Created journey maps, personas, and branding material+ Reached 100+ contacts with a 15% conversion rate from leads to customers
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UI/UX Intern
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May 2022 - Aug 2022
+ Worked on a team of two in Cargill’s Protein and Salt sector to redesign a dashboard utilized by over 1,000 stakeholders+ Utilized data visualization and material UI design to ensure effective display of content+ New designs achieved a conservative saved cost of $50k per year
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Illinois Design Consulting
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United States
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Design Services
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1 - 100 Employee
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Senior Design Consultant
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Sep 2022 - Dec 2022
+ Responsible for helping team navigate technical design tools such as Figma+ Possess higher knowledge of core design skills and exudes positive leadership behavior
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UX Consultant
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Sep 2021 - Sep 2022
+ Utilized personas, journey mapping, and information architecture to assess pain points and effectively voice stories of users to stakeholders+ Conducted and synthesized user testability research through use of interviews and surveys
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Education
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2021 - 2025
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Bachelor of Science - BS, Information Science (HCI/UX) -
2017 - 2021
Vernon Hills High School
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